it is critical to do that. we have 90,000 students at the city college in san francisco. half of them are actually learning english as a second language because san francisco is an entry point for immigrants. and so, often we encourage immigrants to learn english and become citizens and without those courses at the city college they would not have those opportunities. so it is actually critical that we make sure that that institution is funded and that it is protected and that it is fiscally accountable. and we need to make sure that they are teaching classes like the solar class that i helped to advocate for. we now have classes at the campus to learn how to install solar on people's roofs because of the great system that we have here in san francisco. >> you touched on the immigrant community and this is a question from the audience. governor brown vetoed both the trust act and the domestic workers bill last week, how did you feel about those pieces of legislation. >> i was disappointed. i mean one of the issues that we have debated here in san francisco was directly when to

turn, over, juveniles to immigration officials and i have taken the position that, again, they are innocence until proven guilt y so that here in san francisco which is the position of the city that we should not be turning over innocent juveniles to immigration officials regardless of the potential situation. i think that domestic workers, unfortunately, are in a very challenging situation, i know personally that we have an in-home support services person come and help and work with us to help take care of my grandmother. this person was part of our family and this person was someone who was actually crit tal to maintaining her health. but in a work environment, you need to make sure that the rules are clear. so that legislation, tried to create rules in a work environment for some information and they had protection and they could have breaks and they could have all of the protections that we have when we go to work.

>> i think this we are a country that is founded on immigrants and i think that actually my ancestors, many people in the audience have been and they came from around the world and across the world. started in new lifes themselves. so, i just support completely the important role that immigrants have and i think that clearly, that there should be a path to citizenship and that there should be a great respect in many ways for all of the things that they do. >> state proposition, 35, asks if the definition of human trafficking should be expanded and the penalties for the traffickers be increased and be registered for sex offenders

and training be provided for law enforcement officers. i am curious, what is your position on this? >> i support that. i think that obviously, trafficking is a horrific occurrence that happens in areas around the world and it is something that we certainly should have a very strong stand on. and so i think that we absolutely should support that proposition completely. >> thank you. >> mr. chang?mr. king. >> that was one of the issues that we worked on, many of the women who are in san francisco get trafficked from asia and so this is something that is a very serious issue that we need to take it and create greater enforcement and we have received a time and worked with non-profits in a coalition to make sure that the city and the law enforcement and the da and the local police department actually took much more

greater, aggressiveness towards this issue, twiet often, this is happening in your neighborhood, this is happening down the street from your office, this is not something that is happening in some other part of the world. this is happening in san francisco. and it is extremely unfortunate that we have not done everything possible to stamp it out. >> thank you. >> so we are on the last question now. and we are going back to the richmond senior center who is joining us virtually and they asked very specifically, funding cuts to senior programs and services for adults with disabilities are an unyoual reality. many programs may seize to exist without the help from the state level. how will you advocate for us. >> i would ask the seniors at the richmond senior center to not just depend on me but really find ways that we can all work together which is really the question of going back to citizen engagement. unfortunately the people with the smallest voices in sacramento got cut the last couple of years and those were

kids and seniors those were the ones that took the bulk of the cuts. and so there is only a couple of ways to go. and which we can find more revenue to get $20 billion that we can get and get great jobs and we have to go and raise revenue tha, is why prop 38 and the governor's proposal is actually critical to our budget and i think that we have to look at ways that we can cut expenses that are not seniors. i don't think that most people know that our correction budget is $9 billion, and contrast that to our usc which is $10 billion. >> i think that those two priorities should be funded the same. >> thank you. >> i would add to that, that we can't just point out that the present system is costing us $9 billion or more than higher ed. but we have to be willing to reform the system and to find ways to save costs. and when you look at an example

of the initiative that is three strikes and you are out. that could save a tremendous amount of money. $47,000 a year to keep someone in prison rather than what we are spending on year for education whereas someone is educated and having a job there they are not going to go to jail, it is very unlikely. so i would say that there might be something like determinive sentencing which would allow someone who is drug addiction and you could provide the judge with the discretion to actually have them in treatment rather than costing the tax payers thousands of dollars. so we have to save the seniors the services that they need and we have to be willing to make hard reform. >> now we come to the candidate' closing statements if you are not registered to vote, please do so right away and urge your friends and family to register stao.

the deadline is october 22nd. if you have moved you need to register again with the new address, if you have changed your name you need to register again with the new name. all right. so we will do the closing statements in reverse, alphabetical order and please remember that you have tr two minutes >> thank you for organizing our decision and thank you for showing up. >> i am running because we don't need people in sacramento to talk about fixing our problems we need people who know how to fix it. i took over a broke assess or's office and reformed it and made it more efficient and because of that we were able to bring in $3 million of additional revenue without raising taxes people talk about clean jobs but we did something here in san francisco by creating solar sf. we did not just quad droople

the number of solar roofs we created 28 companies and created 450 jobs in the city and making san francisco the solar capitol of california. when people were losing their homes here in san francisco in call, there is plenty of talk and discussion about what to do, we commissioned the first report of its kind to make sure that there were facts behind the dialogue, and because of those facts that came out in our report, looking at foreclosures, finding fraud and finding inappropriate activities that happened by the lenders, action was taken and the home owner's bill of rights and i was proud to be one of the co-sponsors of the piece of legislation in the state. when people talk about fixing education, i first and foremost have that personal experience going into the public schools and going to uc berkeley and seeing my daughter attend a kindergarten every day. and i can tell you that there is no more important issue in our state than education and what we are doing. we need to make sure that it is a priority and it is getting

funded and we can't continue to fund higher ed at the same level of that question was being funded and we need to make sure that we have the leadership and the ability to manage that and to turn around. again, if you are looking for a reformer who has a track record of fixing something, people like me and i hope that i have the honor to be able to representative of sacramento. >> thank you. >> mr. bryer. >> it is a great pleasure to be here and thank you for hosting us. it is a particularly special occasion for me because this stage is where the library commission meets. where i was a member for a long time. so this is it feels like home here. so as i mentioned started a company. we provide innovation to our court system and transparency to government and emphasis on education and those are all priorities. and i want to bring to sacramento. i always have been engaged in

civic activities and my first campaign was six and senator kennedy. and i worked on al gore i was an intern in his office and volunteered in his campaign and i volunteered in new hampshire for obama and for nusome and lee. i have been on the library commission and i have a public service history in my family. my grandfather used to work for the school board. my dad is on the u.s. supreme court and so i believe that the pinnacle of a person's career is to make an impact on public service and when you see faith in our system of government dropping off a cliff, like it has, going from 80 percent to 20 percent, you see, something is wrong. something is not working. and when you have politics as usual, in sacramento, not being

honest, not being transparent, not dealing with the problems and challenges of the future, we say that we have to change that. and so i want to bring that independent perspective, and that personal honesty and that willingness to invest in the things that are important for our future and being able to reform, status quo which is dysfunctional. and so i ask you for your vote, i ask for your support and i ask you to go to www.elect michael bryere.com and we are challenging the politics as usual. so thank you, again. >> i would like to sincerely thank both of you for participating on behalf of myself, the league of women voters of san francisco and our partner organizations the jr. league of san francisco, the university of california, san francisco and the san francisco public library, and our media partner, san francisco government television. thanks to each of you, for taking the time to inform

yourself about your choices on november 6th. good evening. [ applause ] >> it is my pleasure to introduce our moderate or this

evening jennifer white ner, she came to san francisco m in 2001 and volunteered in many levels at the local, state and regional legalers. >> she volunteers as the leader of the voters of california and a small business owner san francisco. and olds a degree in government and a diploma in public policy from the university of edenburo >> thank you very much >> good evening, everyone, this election we have candidates for state senate district eleven, miss additionally, viewers from the it, brooke man community center will submit questions on-line. the time keepers in the first row, will hold up a yellow card to signify to the candidates that they have 15 seconds

remaining and will hold up a red card when it is time to stop. both candidates have agreed to ask their supporters in the audience to be respectful of the other candidate and others in the audience and to maintain quiet during the forum. i also ask you respect this commitment. you have many important decisions to make on november 6th. today's forum gives you the opportunity to ask questions to help you make decisions. now let's begin. >> we will start with question number one, miss difficult on. >> retire aoes in the public and private sectors are faced with nrets to benefits from under funded pen son funds what would you do to prevent this from arriving in the future how do you make everyone life up to their obligations. >> let me thank the league by thanking you and the jr. league for hosting this event and very much thank the senator for participating.

i know that there are a reasons here in san francisco where the result is a foregone conclusion according to many, politicians and i respect the fact that he respects the voters by attending this event. on your question regarding pensions, my husband is here in the audience and he is a retired beneficiary of a state pension program and so we very much think that the state needs to honor its obligations to all of the workers who did that program over the years and those are contractual obligations and i am an attorney and i do believe that those obligations need to be honored. however we have what the government has called a ponzi scheme and so there needs to be definitely a serious readjustment of the priorities in terms of making it more of a private sector-funded type of pension benefit program going forward. >> thank you. >> mr. leno? >> let me also thank both leagues for bringing us together today and also it is a

real pleasure to be here with miss dillan who is a great respectful of her party and an activist in the community. as i think that most californians know that we have spent a lot of time dealing with the issue of pension reform for the public sector workers and i think that we have reached a point where we can going forward deal with pensions in a much more sustain able fashion so that we won't see cities in particular having upwards of 25, 30 percent of the general fund having to go to pension obligations. of course, those promises already made must legally be adhered to. i have also said in a lot of time in this past year, looking at private sector employees in publicly traded corporations, who have seen their benefits wiped out and in many cases actually stolen by top executives who are shifting

significant amounts of money to their benefit at the expense of those workers. >> thank you, the time limits are tough, aren't they? >> the next question for mr. leno is state proposition 35, asks if the definition of human trafficking should be expanded and penalties for traffickers increased, convicted sexual trafers be required to register as sexual offenders and officers be trained and why. what is your view and why? >> the issue of human trafficking is a serious one, san francisco is one of the top cities in the nation experiencing this kind of crime. i authored a bill sponsored by our attorney general harris this past year, which expands asset forfet tour, it is a way for us to quickly gain resources so that we can

provide services for victims and invest in greater public safety police officers and investigator to deal with these crimes. i am opposed to prop 35, number one because the author of it is the single individual, deep pocket putting this forward. it is not a citizen's initiative. never came to talk to me what was wrong or short with our bill that he had to go to the ballot and expanding the definition to those who have to register as sex offenders to include those who have not even committed a sex crime, i think delutes the benefit of our sex registry. >> i think that the support for 35 is a no-brainer. i support 35. i do agree that the problem with sex trafficking in our society in california is a very significant one. in san francisco is frankly the epi center of sex trafficking industry. and i find it interesting that the attorney general participated with the senator

in his abnormal legislation and she did not do much about sex trafficking when she was the district attorney in the city and so, i walked to work through china town through russian hill and i pass sex dens every day and i wonder why the police don't do anything about it. we need more boots on the ground and will at the political level to enforce the law and appears that we need state level support as well. >> thank you, so this is a big picture question. miss dillon. >> what do you think that the legislature can do to address the systemic problems with the finances. >> that is a big picture question, it is a tough question. i think that in the long term a lot of the problems that we have here in the budget relate to the ease at which citizens can put ballot box budgeting measure into his our state rule books and they don't sunset and the legislature has increasing

little control as well as the government what can and cannot be cut every year. this is a problem that is not caused by democrats or republicans or the structure of our system. that is one thing that i would try to change is have legislation passed that would allow any such provisions that are sponsored by citizens and maybe even provisions that are sponsored by legislatures such as a senator to sunset or be examined regularly by some type of a commission. as to whether they remain valid. that is the big picture, but the other big thing that the state needs to do is recognize that we need to cut, cut, cut. and reenvig rate what our priorities are. the example is education verses the bullet train, i don't think that we can have both right now. >> thank you. >> mr. leno? >> yes. what i have learned through ten years of working in the state legislature, is we have a very serious and significant governor nans problem and that is two-thirds vote requirement on the most important issue of the day which is revenue.

we have seen our revenue cut significantly by taxes that arnold schwarzenegger cut his first day in office. we have a depoll that prop is trying to refill it. we should not have to do it at the ballot box when out of 40 state senators 14 have more power than 26. 14 can veto when 26 want. i tell fifth graders that and they say that is not democracy that is not possible. that is exactly the problem, we don't have democracy on all issues, revenue-related in the legislature, let the majority party do its job and if the voters don't like what the majority party is doing in no one jerry man dered districts change who is in power, it is call democracy. >> continuing on the theme of democracy, and how people engage with their elected officials and with government generally, clearly civic engagement is critical for a

safe, strong and a vibrant state and i am curious what you have done and what you will do to encourage appropriate participation in democracy. >> i think that we could probably most simply define participation and democracy aside from community hearings and gatherings is the opportunity to vote. and i have sponsored any number of bills that address the expansion of making it user for people with very busy lives who are probably operating sometimes in languages not their mother tongue to be able to cast a vote. we have seen across this country, the legislature is put in place, more and more hurtles so that people are disenfranchised and not able to get to the polls and we don't see that happening here in california.

but certainly supported the same-day registration, on-line registration and unfortunately, these kinds of advancements, expansions of the voter franchise often pass on party-line votes. >> thank you. >> and what have you done or what will you do to encourage civic participation? >> what i have done is run in this race i ran four years ago and i am the chairman of the republican party and i am very active in my community as a first generation immigrant and encouraging people in the communities to register to vote and i think that the right to vote is the most precious right of a democracy and a citizen. i think that people don't vote despite the ease that occurs here in california for them to vote because they feel like their vote won't make a difference. they feel like what is going on in sacramento is not affected what the people think, it is what the unions and special interests think, people don't bother to come and vote because their vote does not count.

the main thing that i would dow if i were in the legislature is push for a part time legislature. i think that one of the problems that we have is that the legislators like senator leno who started out as a small businessman and knew what it was like to be in that position, they gradually lose that in vying to get reelection. >> 40 other states have part time and i think that california needs to look at that as well. >> thank you. >> i am going back to questions about the current state propositions. proposition 37, seeks to require labeling on foods, containing genetically modified ingredients when the food, raw or processed are offered to sale to consumers in california, what is your position on this miss dillan? >> i think that it is a good idea in principle and i think that it is a good idea that the market is amplely equipped to take care of my husband and i personally shop and look for foods that are fish, for

example, that is caught in california, and caught in the sustainable mat and her that is our choice and we pay more for that. at the same time, there are a lot of people who would like the choice to be able to buy those gmo, products and the labeling that is required by the proposition is very flawed in my opinion. it treats dog food in the same way as it treats food for humans. and it is defining the genetically modified in such a way that heirloom tomatoes that are a mix of old tomatoes seeds would fall under from category. while i support the idea that i would like to know personally where my food comes from we being not ignore the huge cost, and i oppose it and i welcome them do come back with more legislation in that regard. >> i was an early endorser of prop 37. it is quite amazing to me that 50 percent of the population on

this planet buys products, food products, that have this kind of labeling, the prop 37 would require for california already on their packages. disclosure is good. people, consumers should have the opportunity to make choices. there are some who will not have concern with genetically modified products and they will be able to purchase food knowingly. but those who do have concerns, currently are in the dark and cannot make that choice. and so, if it is good enough for china, it is good enough for russia and the european union, i think that it is good enough for california but for the entire united states of america and california will take a great lead in passing this in november. but we are going to see about 35 million dollars spent to fight the likes of monsanto and other corporations against it. >> so you both touched on it

when you were answering that question, the role of government and what is appropriate and i am curious more of a general question, starting with you mr. leno. what do you think that the government should do and when should the government step aside? >> certainly. >> one of the most important roles of government, and for state government is to provide public safety and i think that goes beyond just the police and fire protection, but also to make sure that we keep our air safe. that we keep our water clean and drinkable, which is not the case in many parts of the state right now. that we make sure that our food is safe as well. and so, that is where regulation does come in. there is also, when you ask where the government should step aside, we work on a bill this past year which reforms the regulations for permitting

of solar installations for residents and commercial properties. this impedes the expansion of a great industry that is employing more and more people, that can provide more and more tax benefit to the state. that is where the state should step aside and we could have a uniform regulatory process, lower fees. >> thank you. >> i agree with the senator that public safety is one of the few, in my opinion that the government should have control over in our lives. but i wonder why the senator is a support of the trust act that senator amiano supported that tried to prevent the state from returning illegal aliens who commit serious crimes including gang violence from being deported from this country, that is a public safety issue that all of us who live in san francisco have to deal with every day. so i really question whether one can square one of those statements with the other.

i believe in the natural law from john stewart mill and other philosophers that our rights do not flow from the government, the government's rights and the government's rights flow from the citizens. and so the government should have as limited a scope as possible, not and interfere with business and not interfere with our privacy and not spy on us and generally keep the public order and that is about it. >> thank you, so following up on that one of those things that the government is involved in right now is the educational system. and california used to have an education system that was the envy of the nation. how do you feel we get that back? >> well, it is a tragedy that what used to be one of the top systems in the country is now i think, 47th according to a recent standard that i saw. the senator and folks in his party in sacramento believe that spending more is the answer. that is clearly not the case. i think that los angeles county they spent $9,000 per student in